Officially co-sleeping now

[schroedingersdodo]

After 5 months with ds in our room, first in a pram and then in a travel cot, both outgrown now, I finally decided that we are co-sleeping and that's it!

After 3 nights with him sleeping in our bed between dh and I, I just went to John Lewis and bought a bed guard (so he can sleep only by my side, as it's said to be the safest option, and I can hug my dh during the night :).

So, it's official. I'm not trying to put him on his beautiful cot in his beautiful room by now.

Nearly all the other mums I know have already put their dcs (same age or younger) in their own rooms, some of them without a baby monitor. My mum thinks having the baby in my bed is the most absurd and wrong thing in the world.

I think I should have tried to let him sleep in his room (one night at least), but he has been feeding a couple of times in the night - not to mention the several times he loses his dummy. I really don't want to have to stand up several times a night, and I don't want breastfeeding to be a chore (he's 5 months, he's supposed to continue BFing for a while still). I want to sleep well and feel happy.

I keep telling myself that something so nice can't be wrong...

I'm happy for having made the decision, but hope I'm not making a rod for my own back.

ps: Just wanted to share that with other mums...

My mum thought the same.

I started at 4 months but actually stopped around 7 months as we both started sleeping better with him in his cot. I still feed him lying down in my bed though, and I'm nowhere near ready putting him in his own room (he's 9 months now).

Just keep going as long as you want, and don't worry about bad habits. If you get to the stage of wanting to change it, try the No-Cry Sleep Solution.

It's not wrong, it's lovely! And it's very good for breastfeeding, I think I would have given up long ago if I wasn't co-sleeping with DD.

My mum was the one that actually suggested it to me, lots of people in my family have co-slept and they all rave about it. None of them ever had any problems getting their DCs to sleep in their own bed.

This is a lovely article about co-sleeping- www.askdrsears.com/html/7/T071000.asp

If anyone says you are making a rod for your own back, tell them where they can stick that rod

good for you- I co-slept with DD for around 2 months, only just recently put her in cot in our room. I loved it for the most part- nothing better than snuggling with your baby and seeing their smile in the morning. We only stopped because DH was getting NO sleep and a bad back or we would still be doing it, but was time to make a change, which incidentally was not that hard to make, rod or no rod. In my group of friends no one was doing it either and had their LO's in their own room at 2-3 months! Each to their own. Enjoy it!!

x x

Scarlett, I can't put the cot in our room because we have no space for that, and dh has made it clear he doesn't like the idea of taking the cot from the nursery and stuffing it by our bed. So, co-sleeping was the path of least resistance :)

EauRouge and AngelDog, thanks for the recommendations! The article is great (I've read a few of these research results in the book "Three in a bed", which I read even when I wasn't planning to co-sleep). I'll read about the no-cry solution as well.

Thanks a lot for the kind comments, they made me few less of an outcast. Now it's time to go to bed and try the new arrangement, with the bed guard :)